


One Hundred Years in a Sigh

by parttimefemmefatale (writingramblr)



Series: Valentine's Day collection 2/14/14 [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: "Rose" AU, Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon, Doctor Who AU, Drabble Fic, F/M, Season 1 episode 1 AU, Super Angst, Unrequited Love, angst with a side of romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-15
Updated: 2014-01-15
Packaged: 2018-01-08 18:58:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1136240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingramblr/pseuds/parttimefemmefatale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose says no, though she doesn't want to. She's got Mickey to worry about, and she needs to go find Jackie.<br/>Nine accepts that, and goes.<br/>How long is it for her before he returns?<br/>How long is it for him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [*edit 1/21: found the inspiration!  
> http://doortotomorrow.tumblr.com/post/36939625372/ ]
> 
> This is inspired by an amazing fanfic i read on ffnet, or tumblr, and i'm kicking myself for not bookmarking it or anything. This is much longer (for a drabble) and takes a look at the entire first season if "Rose" had gone a bit different. Nine leaves her, and tries to go on his own, he doesn't succeed.  
> He misses her, and even thinks he's in love with her.  
> If it was love at first sight, who's to say he doesn't?  
> He returns for her, and then must spend his every waking moment convincing himself she didn't die, yet. She's with him.
> 
> So angsty it hurts.

He wasn't sure what it was. What was it about this pink and yellow human?

She was so young, so fragile. Yet she burned with an inner strength. It had revealed itself down below the London eye, the most dangerous night of Rose's life, but simply routine for the Doctor.

She'd risked her life for him.

He tried to figure out why she would do that for a complete stranger.

He could see the disapproval and caution in her _boyfriend_ Mickey's eyes. But the Doctor wasn't intimidated.

As he leaned against the TARDIS, and asked Rose if she'd come with him, if she'd join him, he heard her say yes.

But her lips said no.

Her eyes were wide, and she said no. Putting her arm around Mickey, she turned him down.

***

So he left.

He traveled; he stopped wars from breaking out, rescued failing ships, and dying crews.

He went to calm and peaceful planets, tried to find a new companion.

But even when he couldn't, he didn't feel that bad.

He didn't sleep often, barely once a month, but when he did, his mind was not his own.

He unconsciously reached out, across the stars and the universe, searching for her.

That one small moment he'd seen her thoughts, read her heart's desire and not what she'd really spoken aloud.

It seemed only in dreams could he see her.

He traveled nearly a hundred years, somehow always able to make an excuse for being alone.

He could hear the occasional murmur of confusion or questioning from the TARDIS. That wonderful machine.

She knew him better than he knew himself.

At least since...

It hurt to think of her name now. She was certainly long dead.

His pink and yellow human.

***

When she appeared in his dreams again, for the first time in nearly half a century, he took it as a sign. Rising abruptly, and running to the console room, he begins to flick switches, and pull on levers.

The TARDIS hummed approvingly, and he could feel her guiding him.

The moment was simple to find, easy to remember, he just had to act as if he’d just left. The TARDIS came to a stop, and he raced for the doors, becoming breathless quite easily, despite his two pounding hearts.

The air was chilled, and his sweat soaked skin would have felt freezing, but he couldn’t feel anything. Not when he caught a glimpse of her wonderful blond hair, blowing slightly in the night air as she walked away.

She was half dragging, half carrying Mickey as she went, and she whirled around at the sound of the TARDIS engines, a beaming smile taking over her previously gloomy and serious face.

“Did I mention it can also travel in time?”

One hundred years, a thousand cursed moments, and way too many haunting dream visions of her could not compare to the real Rose Tyler who stood before him, and then was just as suddenly running at him, after giving Mickey a swift kiss on the cheek.

He could not resist her when she hugged him, and he half feared he might never let go if he wasn’t careful.

Gently, gently, he reminded himself. She was still just a fragile young human.

But she was _with_ him now.

He would look after her, protect her at all costs.

He only took the best.

She was it.

*

“Where are we gonna go?”

He grinned at her, and even as his hearts beat a staccato rhythm in his chest, a constant assurance she was real, she was here, he kept on babbling like he always had around her.

“Further than I’ve ever gone! Rose Tyler, we’re going to the year 5 billion! To the End of the World!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, i did love the excuse to write the Parting of the Ways ending scene. thanks.  
> Hope you like it!  
> It's left a bit open ended.

They survived the End of the World and then went for chips.

The Doctor didn’t take his eyes off of her, not when he was eating, not when she took an enormous chip and managed to shove it in her mouth, and he knew she was hoping to make him laugh.

He did, quite easily. But he could barely pause his inner mantra of thankfulness for long enough to hear her speak.

Then he clamped down on his noisy brain and begged for her to repeat what she said.

“I just thought, maybe since we went to the future, next time we might visit the past?”

The Doctor grinned,

“Right you are. How’s 1860 sound?”

“What happened in 1860?”

“I dunno. Let’s find out!”

***

Then she came out of the wardrobe in that black dress and he nearly had a heart attack. For someone with two hearts, that was next to impossible.

Little did he know how many impossible things would happen while he traveled with Rose Tyler.

Before he could stop himself, he spoke,

“You look beautiful.”

Rose blushed, and ducked her head, tapping her feet together, fully prepared to thank him and insist he was blind, when he tacked on another word.

“Considering.”

Rose frowned,

“Considering what?”

“That you’re human.”

Her eyebrows shot up and almost vanished into her carefully combed bangs.

“I think that’s a compliment. So thank you.”

The Doctor resumed his tinkering, glad he had managed to avoid sounding like a complete utter fool. Besotted. That’s what he was. Plain and simple.

It seemed absence had made both his hearts fonder of Rose Tyler. He knew he’d need to be careful, go slowly, and prove himself to her.

What girl in her right mind would be interested in a daft old fool like him?

***

The Doctor was facing death, and he was not alone. The brave, beautiful, and extremely scared Rose Tyler was with him. He reached out and took her hand, not caring how it looked; he might never get another moment to tell her.

The words stuck in his throat, and another phrase slipped out.

“I’m so glad I met you.”

She looked at their joined hands for a split second, before meeting his intense gaze. She felt the warmth, and the truth of what he was saying, and as she squeezed his hand back, he knew he was lost.

“Me too.”

***

All their adventures leading up to the confrontation with his greatest enemy, whom he’d nearly believed had killed Rose, paled in comparison to what he had just done.

He’d taken her face in his hands, kissed her forehead, and proclaimed her brilliant. He’d run into the TARDIS with her, and he’d lied to her.

He’d deceived her to save her. As he’d sworn to protect her with his last breath, he knew he could not have let her stay.

Had this been all his life had been leading to?

Dying at the hands of the Daleks? Even when it came down to it, to committing to killing the entire earth and wiping out the Dalek fleet, he couldn’t do it.

He would rather die a coward, than live a murderer. She would never have wanted him if he’d become that.

He liked to think, to dream, and to imagine she cared for him. Even just a little. The pain in her voice as she’d shouted to him to stop the madness, and let her out.

He closed his eyes, and waited for death. He’d lived long enough. He wasn’t going to argue with fate.

***

He stood still, unflinching, and yet, nothing happened.

He heard an echo of the sound, in his mind, before he registered the sound in his ears.

The TARDIS had returned!

The impossible had once again become his reality.

But how?

When the doors swung open and a bright golden light emerged, he nearly fell backwards in shock. As it was, he fell to his knees, and when the light dimmed enough to let a figure be seen, he knew.

“Rose! What have you done?”

“I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me.” Her voice was soft, gentle with him as always, but had a hard edge to it.

“You looked into the time vortex? No one’s supposed to do that! That power, it will kill you!”

 “I had to find you. I want you safe, my doctor.”

Rose looked directly at him, and it wasn’t blinding. He could see only the warmth of her brown eyes, and then the Dalek emperor spoke, and she turned her golden fury upon him.

***

Rose was going on about the sun and stars, and the moon, and asked him why they hurt.

“ _My head_. Is killing me.”

Tears had been flowing down her cheeks, even as she’d unleashed her righteous wrath on the Daleks, and now, she looked at him, desperate, yet joyful. He was safe, but she was not. Not yet.

“Come here. I think you need a doctor.”

He smiled at her, a gentle smile, the one reserved only for her.

She stepped forward, falling into his embrace, and he leaned down to kiss her, his eyes only closing once their lips met.

He could feel her mouth under his, and all the underlying power of the vortex flowing through her and into him.

Before he pulled back, and their lips parted, he made sure he’d drained every last ounce of power from her.

She whispered to him, barely with a sound,

“Thank you.”

Then she fainted in his arms, all her strength gone, as her body began to recover.

He breathed the vortex back into the TARDIS, but he could already feel the toll it was taking on him.

Would he die? Now that he had just saved her as she’d saved him?

Was this to be his curse for changing their futures?

He prayed no matter what, he would not lose her.

That would be a fate worse than death.

***

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> p.s. if anyone happens across that story, that had inspired this one, please feel free to message me on tumblr. i'm happy to give credit!  
> (curse my shoddy memory!!)

**Author's Note:**

> update as of 1/23:  
> okay so i just read a ton about the whole plagiarizing thing with Cassandra Claire, whom you know as the author of the Mortal Instruments, and i just gotta say, please please don't think i stole that drabble and wanted to pass it as my own here, just in a longer version.  
> even though that's basically what happened. I read it, loved it. and then promptly lost it. spent all the next day trying to find it on ffnet, only to fail bc it had been on tumblr the whole time. duh. so then i wrote this short story you just finished. it's a re-write of most of season 1, true enough. with major shippy-ness.  
> anyway, just thought i'd address this in case, god forbid, someone says something.


End file.
